It was a Tuesday. I stood at the counter, the old counter, the one I called “The Fishbowl”. I’m sure I was already thinking about lunch. I know it wasn’t busy, because Co-op isn’t busy on early Tuesday mornings in September.
Judy was waiting on a man in a white button up shirt who said offhandedly, “Y’all been watching the news?”
Yeah dude, clearly.
This is 2001. We barely had internet, and even then not on our Point-of-Sale computers. We got our weather from the 7:00 am, noon, and six o’clock news… and also an ancient tiny dot matrix style computer at the back of the store that had only radar, stockyard reports, and grain futures options. There was no Facebook to scroll mindlessly for hours on end. There were no FOX, CNN, NBC, CBS, or MSN apps at our fingertips. We were working, we weren’t sipping coffee over newspapers with the morning shows on in the background.
He went on to say, “A plane crashed into the twin towers in New York City.”
That gave us pause. No good could come of this. A few of us walked over to catch coverage on the little tv in the tire shop waiting area. Sure enough, there it was. It was horrific, but stranger things had happened. Planes crash all the time. Tragic, for certain, right there in America’s biggest city, into one of the tallest buildings. We speculated that an engine must have gone out, or his dials stopped working, it had to be something mechanical. It never occurred to us that something sinister was amiss.
Until we started to walk away.
I think it was Jeff Ailey that said, “Look! Here comes another one!”
And we all stood, slack jawed, staring in disbelief at that cube TV.
I think the customer that sat in the vinyl couch, watching with us, got up and left. I went back to the counter and started calling people.
We all did.
We plugged up a radio and tuned into WIVK so we wouldn’t miss anything. We took turns waiting on the dwindling customers that were as dumbstruck as we were. Throughout the day we gathered in pairs or trios in front of the tire shop tv, where we saw coverage of the Pentagon. Of Flight 93. Of the towers collapsing. We saw tears on news anchors faces. We saw strangers sob. We stuck together, my Co-op family and me.
I watched the biggest event in our nation’s history go down on a 24″ tv at the local feed and seed.
Our manager at the time, Darrell Clark, came out to tell us that we could go home, but he thought we’d be safer at work, at least for awhile. It was mass exodus on the highway as people rushed to get home, where they felt safe. Plus, the Co-op doesn’t close. We sell necessities. We might get very busy very soon.
Turns out we didn’t get busy till the NEXT day, where I was cashier for the fuel pumps (a nightmare in itself), but staying at work had been a good idea after all. People had already flocked home and stayed there so at 5:00 Chapman Highway was deserted. I had the road to myself as I speculated on what next. We’d ran through what would happen if there was a terrorist attack on Oak Ridge. (We’d never know it, we’d be that red mist). Co-op also carries some potentially dangerous chemicals so we’d been on guard with that, as well. And we waited. All day we had waited to go home. And while we waited, we worried, and cried, and prayed. The fear was in the uncertain. What would happen, would our reserves be called in? (they already had been) Would there be a draft? I would serve. You dang right I’d lace up.
And that night we watched our President confirm our fears. In a way it was a relief to know we were going to war. We wouldn’t stand for this. It was a nasty gut punch but somebody was gonna pay.
And the next morning we woke up grateful to be alive, thankful to be a citizen of the strongest country in the world, and damn mad.
People often say we’re living in uncertain times. I can’t remember a time when things WEREN’T uncertain. That’s why we put our trust in the Lord. He’s the rock on which we must stand. James 4:14 tells us, whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.
I’m still mad. I don’t guess I’ll ever get over it. This isn’t a date I memorized for a history test, this is something I lived through. And although New York has never been on my list of favorite places, I still appreciate it for what it is. I think of the firemen, the paramedics, the officers, the good Samaritans that rushed to help that morning and for years afterward. I think of all the families of the victims, all the ones from the towers, the people on the ground, the rescue teams. I think of how proud everyone was of the people on Flight 93 that pushed back, that refused to be denied a fight. They did more than we’ll ever know. And they saved hundreds or thousands more souls. God bless that bunch.
Every year I write a little something. I know it gets repetitive. My story isn’t interesting or special. But it’s mine. It gets harder every year to write because I’m still so angry, and I’m frustrated when I see these pictures and news stories of this trash that have forgotten what it was like. Or maybe they never knew. But they’re taking it all for granted, and they’re taking a stand against an isolated incident. This was an ATTACK. A planned event meant to bring America and her citizens to our knees. This was not a mistake, or an individual lashing out. This was an organized group of nutbags who systematically tried to demolish the UNITED States of America.
America was different then. There was a camaradarie that was on all our faces. There were grim smiles and flags every where. We were proud, we weren’t beaten, we were just gathering steam. And when they released us to travel, we DID. We weren’t scared, but we were cautious.

I started the day in prayer, and I prayed again with the department heads of Sevier County during our weekly Zoom meeting, and I’ve prayed intermittently throughout the day. It goes without saying more than a few tears have dropped from my eyes today. I didn’t lose a soul on September 11th. But we’ve all been touched by it.
Dictionary.com’s word of the day is ineffable: incapable of being expressed or described in words, inexpressible.
I’ve tried. I will always try. Because for some of us, it was more than a history lesson.